My Hoopte30 Project Attempt #6 - the painless way to earn cash back every day

[e30austin]

so much room to store e30 m3 parts!

[AWDBOB]

Got a spot for engines, heater boxes, carpet etc etc, the ole barn is coming along!

Untitled by Bobbie Morrone, on Flickr

[AWDBOB]

OMG please post pics and info. I would like the exact setup for mine 89.

Will do! I bet he'd do a group buy

[amcp]

My buddy is going to make me a hitch that sandwiches between the rear bumper shock mounts so I can run a hitch mounted bike rack, and thus remove my roof bars to get the wind noise back down.

OMG please post pics and info. I would like the exact setup for mine 89.

[AWDBOB]

yee haw, brother

chop it up baby

Fancy early 4dr revealed a terminal amount of rust fortunately, so I am no longer indebted to saving its life.

In other hooptie news, the mini rear door card sub came in and thus I can finally finish the audio setup! e30dreamin on Instagram is who makes the mini sub boxes. They're fairly priced and are well thought out and well built. He normally only sells them in pairs though, so don't ask him for just one.

My buddy is going to make me a hitch that sandwiches between the rear bumper shock mounts so I can run a hitch mounted bike rack, and thus remove my roof bars to get the wind noise back down.

Untitled by Bobbie Morrone, on Flickr

[e30austin]

yee haw, brother

[AWDBOB]

The e30 messiah strikes again

hahaha idk about all that!

"M"agic.

mmmmm lovin' it


Rusty sedan hooptie trunk lid exchanged for same color less rusty hooptie trunk lid with bonus spoiler

I went rummmmmmaging through the parts stash here and I have almost everything I need to make the car run/drive again outside of an early water pump, but decided it's going to have to wait until I get fully moved out of my warehouse and into the new shop. As much as I want to get on this thing right away, the time just isn't there.

Untitled by Bobbie Morrone, on Flickr
Untitled by Bobbie Morrone, on Flickr

[moatilliatta]

"M"agic.

[prisonerofdoom83]

The e30 messiah strikes again

[AWDBOB]

I finally got a chance to snag that '87 325i sedan I've had sitting behind a guys house for.... too long. Clear is gone, rust is driver status, aka your feet won't go through the floor but it has expected rust.

I bought it so long ago I forgot what it looked like. The car is packed full of cool stuff. Apparently a guy who owned it in the early 90s worked at the local Indianapolis BMW dealer and threw most of the accessory catalog at it.

super cool front lip that i can't identify, Euroweaves, BMW phone, BMW alarm system, rear headrests, cassette holder rear center console, etc all present.

It has a crack free dash, LSD, 13 button OBC, premium sound and heated seats too, so it was very well optioned. For whatever reason, all of the '87 325i sedans i've had have all been well optioned.

Took it through the carwash on the way home to remove the grossness and it revealed a perfect hooptie.

I am going to throw a timing belt/brakes/fuel hoses on it and see where we're at. This may be the perfect 4 season e30 daily.

Untitled by Bobbie Morrone, on Flickr
Untitled by Bobbie Morrone, on Flickr
Untitled by Bobbie Morrone, on Flickr
Untitled by Bobbie Morrone, on Flickr

[AWDBOB]

My current audio setup in hooptie is the common Continental TR7412UB paired with a working factory premium sound trunk amp and a set of very low mileage premium sound speakers/tweeters and it doesn't sound great.

The bluetooth input on the Conti radio is mediocre at best, requires you to manually power it on each time you start the car up, and won't charge via USB, so I've been looking for a solution for quite some time.

I bought a Blaupunkt Bremen as a potential solution and despite being $500, it felt just as cheap/chinsey as the VDO in my hands, so I returned it and spread the audio money elsewhere.

I ended up with a Sony DSX-GS80, ultimately compromising on looks for sound quality.

This radio has a 4 channel class D amp inside of it (45w RMS per channel) which should be perfect to give the premium sound speakers what they need to shine without dealing with wiring an amp in.

I ran a big fused power wire straight to the positive terminal in the engine bay, and a big ground straight to the G100 under the dash and it sounds GREAT, running the phone in through USB (that the Conti didn't have).

I used Bradnic's (OEM HiFi) premium trunk amp delete in the trunk as well to make the install as simple as possible, and also ran RCA cables down the drivers side wiring trunk the last time the carpet was out.

The final pieces of the puzzle are a mini-sub box for behind the driver rear door card that John aka E30Dreamin is building me, along with custom tweeters/crossovers that my brother made me, that will replace the front door tweeters! His tweeter housings look great.

The car already sounds worlds better than it did with the Conti radio, so the tweeters and mini-sub will be the icing on the cake.

Another thing I did during this process was change the OBC bracket in the HVAC panel to the 6 button style bracket, which allows the OBC to be removed from the front vs removing the entire HVAC panel, which is required when running a 13 button. This is my test car for 13 button OBCs while my cluster tester slowly moves up on the to-do list, so making the OBC removable for testing is huge. I'll put a euro clock there eventually, but I didn't want to spend the coin on one just yet.

Anyway, this project was a big item checked off the list for me, as I've been after good audio for a while, and finally feel like it's at a good spot until I splurge on some nice Focals down the road.

Untitled by Bobbie Morrone, on Flickr
Untitled by Bobbie Morrone, on Flickr
Untitled by Bobbie Morrone, on Flickr

[AWDBOB]

Looks like a perfect start to a spec e30 car for that racer with medium deep pockets and who wants a fresh build.

Thankfully my buddy bought it to use it to repair his shell. We don't have much of a midwest spec presence, so there isn't much of a market for race car shells here, unfortunately.

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Another week, another round of shelving. I got my hands on these 18" deep industrial shelves that are a perfect fit down to a couple inches for the short side of the barn to the left of the overhead door. I set the bottom shelves up off the floor for engine storage. They're all on dollies so it should work out well. I also put up my last two sections of 4x8' yellow shelving.

The original floor plan I made called for two additional 4x8' shelving units near the center of the barn. If I can get everything organized I won't need them, which would increase my lift/work area by about 200sq ft which would be nice.

Also, the bavarian entities of the ether spoke, and brought to me the best/worst M3 rear seat known to man. It was in my price range, 20mins from my parents place on the east coast, AND is black leather, matching hoopties interior. Who else can say they have an E30M seat with a REAR ARM REST!!!! It's perfect for the car, I am quite pleased with the purchase. (His photo, not mine. They're going to stuff it in the M3 trunk for when I retrieve the car)

Untitled by Bobbie Morrone, on Flickr
Untitled by Bobbie Morrone, on Flickr
Untitled by Bobbie Morrone, on Flickr

[OSAH racing]

Looks like a perfect start to a spec e30 car for that racer with medium deep pockets and who wants a fresh build.

[AWDBOB]

Rear mount condenser opportunity. 2025

It’s a shame this will either go to Jonathan or be cut up in 5 days

[moatilliatta]

Rear mount condenser opportunity. 2025